Ships face new tax to sail through Baltic Sea to protect underwater cables from Putin sabotage
Ships face new tax to sail through Baltic Sea to protect underwater cables from Putin sabotage
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Shipping firms may need to pay a tax to use the Baltic Sea to fund costly protection for underwater cables, says Estonia’s defence minister. Hanno Pevkur said the move may be needed after a series of incidents where vessels allegedly linked to Russia’s “shadow fleet” have damaged power and communications cables with their anchors in acts of suspected sabotage by Vladimir Putin’s regime.
“Let’s say that when you go to the airport you have the landing fee, you have the airport fee and this is paid in the ticket,” he said, speaking in Tokyo. “So in one moment maybe we will see that when you are passing through the Danish straits there will be a cost for the companies to pay this because this is basically an insurance fee to damaging the cables.”.
Swedish authorities seized a Maltese-flagged ship on Monday in connection with damage caused to a cable running between Latvia and Sweden, one of four similar incidents in just over a year that have also affected power and telecoms lines running between Estonia and Finland.
Mr Pevkur said while official investigations are ongoing, the series of incidents point to coordinated action by ships that are part of Russia’s “shadow fleet”. “When we see that all those ships are part of the shadow fleet of Russia although having different flags on their tail...then of course you know we have to connect the dots,” he explained.
